


Burning Day

by 8sword



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Auror!Dean, Chosen One Sam, F/F, F/M, Head Girl!Claire, M/M, Professor!Benny, Professor!Castiel, SPN/Hogwarts fusion, Unspeakable!Cas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:46:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That's funny," Ellen says over Dean, "because the Ministry of Children and Families just Flooed your office with the news that your kid just got busted for under-age magic. There something you're not telling me?"</p><p>A Hogwarts AU in which Castiel teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts, Dean fights evil and his feelings, and Emma saves Dean's most precious person--and possibly the wizarding world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**notes** : [loversforlycanthropes](http://loversforlycanthropes.tumblr.com/) and I have been working on this for a while. It's not complete yet, but I wanted to start posting because she's put together a [Pot and Kettle](782393)-inspired Claire/Emma tumblr for us that you can check out [here](http://notesonthedashboard.tumblr.com/)!

 **other notes** : Sadly, British-isms will be gleefully ignored here, for the most part. I'm lazily transplanting the SPN characters into Europe without incorporating much of anything, which means a deplorable lack (or pollution of) British-isms, location-accurate register, and overall realism or accuracy. My apologies.

 

* * *

 

            Dean's in St. Mungo's when the call comes. There's a burst of green flame in the fireplace a few feet from the foot of his bed, and then Ellen's head is sitting inside it, scowling at him. Her spectacles, the _I've got paperwork I've gotta squint at and I'm not happy about it_ ones, are sitting on top of her nose.

            Dean raises his head off the pillows as well as he's able to slant a smirk at her. "You got another job for me already, Chief?"

            Ellen eyes him beadily. Then she eyes the fragments of wand sitting on the nightstand next to the bed. Dean figures that's why she called, to chew his ass off for breaking his fourth wand in as many months, she looks away from it back at him. "You got something going on in the domestic department you wanna tell me about, Dean?"

            Domestic means, and has only ever meant, Sam. Dean's face begins to shutter over, and Ellen sighs, takes off her spectacles with a sigh.

            "Don't, Dean. What I mean is, did you go messin' around before you learned your rubber spells?"

            A lesser wizard than Dean might've turned red at a woman like Ellen talking to him about contraception spells. As it was, only his ears went pink. "What? _No_ \--"

            "That's funny," Ellen says over him, "because the Ministry of Children and Families just Flooed your office with the news that your _kid_ just got busted for under-age magic."

            Dean lets his head drop back into his pillow. It's still throbbing rather fiercely despite the vile anti-inflammatory potion the healers made him drink to keep his brain from squishing itself. "Well, it's a mistake," he says irately. "Obviously."

            "Nothing's obvious with you, Dean Winchester," Ellen grumbles, but her expression's relaxed from its scowl. She pushes her spectacles back on. "Otherwise it would've been _obvious_ that you don't throw yourself in front of a goddamn Reducto curse."

            "Yeah, yeah, Chief," Dean says, examining the constellation decorations on the ceiling. H hears Ellen harrumph something about smart-asses who could pay their bosses proper respect once in a while before there's the little crackling sound that means she's pulled out of the fireplace and ended the Floo call.

            Her departure leaves it too quiet. It's two in the morning, and Healers have been in and out of Dean's room every hour to wake him up since he managed to Apparate his sorry concussed ass to St. Mungo's with the kidnapped heiress's arm clutched in one hand and the remains of his wand falling out of the other.

            The splinters of cedar that had gotten lodged in his palm had been remedied soon enough, but the wand itself couldn't be. Dean eyes the pieces of it on the bedside table, feeling less regret than he probably should. This one had held a heartstring from a Chinese Fireball, Colt had said, and while dragons are pretty bad-ass, Dean's never quite been able to use it without remembering how close the one Sam had faced in that stupid tournament had come to turning him into greasy bones. Dean had watched that task through Ash's Omnioculars, and sometimes he wishes he hadn't, because that look on Sam's face as he stared back over his shoulder at the Fireball, like he honest to God thought he was going to die, was something Dean saw too many times, before the end.

            And now he'd give anything to see it just once more.

            Fuck. Dean turns over onto his face, burying it in the sterile-smelling pillow. Wonders if St. Mungo's has charms on the room to keep patients from Summoning a bottle of Ogden's into it.

            Except his wand's broken, so he couldn't do it anyway. Jesus. He shoves his face harder into the pillow and nearly misses the soft _whoosh_ of displaced air at the foot of the bed.

            Nearly. He flips over on the starched sheets, reaching reflexively for the useless wand at his bedside. But just as quickly, he's lowering his hand, because it's Ellen standing in front of him, looking harried and rumpled in the same robes she'd been wearing yesterday when she gave him the recovery mission.

            She grabs his arm, tugging him out of bed. Her sleeve is still warm from the Floo fire she'd disconnected only a moment before.

            "Ellen, what--"

            "We're getting a Healer in here to discharge you," she says tightly. "There's something you need to see."

 

\- o -

 

            The kid inside the interrogation cell can't be any younger than fifteen. Might even be eighteen--with her hood pulled over her head and her hands pressed against her forehead as she stares down at the table, it's hard to tell.

            Dean looks away from the glass, meets Ellen's eyes head-on. She has her arms crossed, eyebrows expectant.

            "The facial proportions are about right." Ronald Reznick was in the room, had a glowing set of squares and equations hovering in the air in front of him. "Similar coloring. Widow's peak, free-hanging earlobes, broad lips--did anyone see if she had dimples?"

            "Think it's gonna be kinda hard to get her to smile, about now," Ellen says without taking her eyes from Dean.

            He holds her gaze. Points at the glass. "That. Is not. My kid."

            "Funny thing," Ellen says. "Ron did a paternity spell, and apparently she is. Unless..."

            Dean's not the kind of guy whose knees turn to water. But this, the possibility of _that_ , makes him grab the bare table next to him for support. "No."

            "She could be," Ellen says softly.

            "Sam wasn't having sex when he was _twelve_."

            "But you were at fifteen?"

            Dean smirks at her without making eye contact. Wants to shock her, to make her back the fuck off. "Do we know who the mom is?"

            Ellen's quiet for a minute. Ron looks back and forth between them, the glowing symbols beside him fading slightly. Then she reaches into the moleskin side-pouch that never leaves her belt and pulls out a case file just thin enough to be new and just thick enough to be intriguing.

            Dean takes it from her. The date stamped on its front is yesterday's, 27 August, and inside, the file's width is revealed to be mostly due to an extensive set of crime scene photos.

            Murder scene photos are the only wizard photos that don't move, and by now, Dean's lived in the wizarding world long enough for that stillness to feel wrong to him, for him to stare at the snapshot a moment longer waiting for something to happen. But there's no movement, just the image of a bloodied cloak covering a vaguely human-shaped mass on dark-stained blue carpet. Then, in the next photo, the body that was underneath it: female, all of the distinguishing features pushed to the periphery of Dean's notice because the body's got no feet or hands. Only bloody stumps just below the malleoli of the ankles and just past the styloid processes of the bones at the wrists.

            The next photos are close-ups of the stumps; Dean tilts them up to the light, notes the ragged cut that suggests a weapon was used instead of a Severing Charm. That could mean something ceremonial, or simply that the perp didn't have a wand to use. But there's no restraints, and it's hard to imagine that anyone would get a witch to stay still long enough for them to cut off her hands and feet without an _Immobulus_ or _Stupefy_. Unless--

            He glances past the photos at Ron. "Any potions in her system?"

            Ron shakes his head. "Clean."

            "They find her wand anywhere on the scene?"

            "Dean," Ellen says.

            "Chief," he says in the same voice.

            She gives him a Look and takes the file from him. Closes it firmly. "Her name was Lydia Prince. Mother of Emma Prince, sixteen years old."

            Dean pointedly does not look inside the interrogation room.

            "Apparently Emma came home and found someone in a cloak kneeling over her mother's body," Ellen continues. "She says she fired off a Reducto curse to get them off her, but he or she--"

            "Or it," supplies Ron.

            "--Apparated away before the spell could hit them," Ellen finishes, ignoring Ron.

            Dean's smirking, because what else can you do in a situation like this. "A Reducto curse, huh? Small world."

            "Shut up, Dean," Ellen say tiredly. "All we know is the victim was already dead by the time Emma fired the curse because it set off the Trace. A Ministry rep busted ass out to investigate, found her trying to Side-Along Apparate the body to Mungo's."

            Dean's gaze slides back the one-way window. The kid's still got her head in her hands, brown spots stiffening along the cuffs of her hoodie where she must have held her mom's bleeding body.

            Fuck.

            When he takes a step toward the door of the cell, Ellen steps in front of him. "Just so we're clear, Dean. This isn't gonna be your case."

            "The hell it isn't."

            "You wanna take that tone with my, boy?" she flares back. Dean makes a _tch_ sound and shoves past her into the room, snatching the case file as he goes.

            He gives the face in the first picture one last glance as he does the casual one-two rap on the interrogation room door before he enters. He doesn't think he recognizes it, the dark eyes or soft parted lips, and he hadn't expected to, but at least this way there's no time for him to dwell on the simultaneous relief and disappointment that sweep through him.

            Maybe there wouldn't have been anyway. Because he feels something the second he enters the cell. Something weird. Something _too much_. Something that maybe has nothing to do with anything but the fact that the eyes that flick up to him are some sort of hazel, tired and dark-flecked and red-rimmed and his insides are twisting with _Sammy_.

            He doesn't realize his knees are threatening to give out on him again until he feels the cold metal of the table under his palms. He grips it and says, "Hey, Emma."

            Somewhere between his first sight of her and now, the expression on her face has gone from open and wretched to closed-off and guarded. She doesn't say anything.

            He pulls out the chair opposite her and drops into it. "Shitty day, huh?"

            She looks away from him, to some spot between the wall and the floor.

            "Hey." He raps on the table with his knuckles. "You gonna talk?"

            Her eyes slide back almost to his, hovering somewhere around his eyebrow instead. "Depends," she says hoarsely. "You going to stop treating me like a suspect?"

            Dean eyes her for a minute. Forces himself not to leave that safe space of _Auror_ , to slide into the Forbidden Forest of  _holy shit, this is my fucking kid_. "Did you see who killed her?"

            Emma's eyes slide down the rest of him. Too late he realizes he's still in the blood-spattered, dirt-covered clothes Ellen had shoved them at him in his Mungo's room. "Who the fuck even are you?"

            This is probably about the best opening he's going to get for the news he has. He exhales and reaches into the file folder in his hand. He pulls out the slip of paper Ellen had given him: the results of the paternity spell Ron had done, and slides it to her, along with his Ministry badge.

            Emma looks down at both items. Then she vomits over the side of the table.

 

\- o -

 

            It's probably not a good thing that as soon as Emma's checked into St. Mungo's overnight for shock and observation, Dean goes out and finds a chick to fuck.

            But he does, sloppy and messy and quick, a Muggle because he doesn't want to deal with the _Merlin! You're Dean Winchester!_ gasps tonight.

            He used to think, after Sam died, that maybe he'd just go live among the Muggles for the rest of his life. Pretend the wizarding world doesn't exist; go somewhere no one would recognize him and fix cars like his dad used to--would make things a lot faster, being able to fix a transmission with a spell instead of having to charge people for new ones. But that's off the table now, isn't it.

            The Ministry of Children and Families rep, an unimpressed-looking witch named Portia, had informed him as they waited for the Healer to finished examining Emma that because of his paternity, Dean was able to take custody of  Emma Prince. He was not, however--and she stressed this--legally obligated. If he didn't assume custody, Emma would become a ward of the Ministry and enter a group home until she came of age at seventeen.

            Ellen bawked at this idea. She'd already insisted of having an Auror posted outside Emma's Mungo's room because they didn't know if whoever had gone after Lydia Prince might also have it out for Emma...unspoken went the fact that if the cloaked person Emma had seen was one of Lucifer's remaining followers, Lydia had probably been targeted because of her relationship to Dean.

            "You may, of course, keep an Auror posted to Emma as long as you wish, regardless of where she ends up," Portia said. "Come September, however, she will be entering Hogwarts, and I think Auror Winchester, of all people, is aware of how secure Headmaster Singer has made the castle grounds."

            "Hang on," Dean had said. " _Enter_ Hogwarts? She hasn't been going there the whole time?"

            "It appears Ms. Prince chose to educate Emma at home," Portia said. Which, okay, maybe it was because Dean and Sam grew up with Muggles, but he'd never heard of witches and wizards being home-schooled. Why would anyone not want to send their kid to Hogwarts? In his and Sam's time, of course, parents had been pulling their kids out of the castle right and left, but things were different now.

            "We will not know the reason for her decision until Emma chooses to share it with us," Portia said. "But I imagine, Mr. Winchester, that if her mother had any clue to your identity, it may have played a role in her decision."

            Dean's stomach had sunk at that. And is still sinking, now, as he slides silently out of Hannah--Anna?--'s bed and then her flat, pulling out the wand Ron had loaned him to Apparate back to his own place.

            He can already imagine the way the _Prophet_ will break the news tomorrow-- _Winchester Love Child Discovered!_ It's not fucking fair, because it's not just his history fucking Becky Rosen's going to dredge up; it'll be Emma's and her mom's as well, and no kid deserves that.

            He crawls under his covers fully clothed and stares at the ceiling. Tries to think of who Lydia Prince could have been, where he could have met her, been with her. The summer after fifth year had been a bad one, Dad dead and--Dean's mind skitters away from remembering any more than that. So much guilt, so much, too much. Nights he spent plastered; nights he woke up in a puddle of vomit lucky not to have choked on it over night; nights he woke up next to bodies he didn't know in places he didn't recognize. God, he'd been in the middle of fucking someone that night the screams went up from the Death Eaters marching on the World Cup; can still remember yanking up his pants and scrambling outside, heart pounding _Sammy Sammy Sammy_. He can remember the blistering detail of his fear but not a thing about the girl he'd been with. Maybe that'd been her, but it could've been the girl against the tree earlier that day, or the guy behind the vendors' carts in the morning.

            And now he knows that was the summer Sam had just found out about the prophecy made about him and Lucifer; that the whole summer, Sam had that fear inside him, festering, while Dean fucked and sucked and fled.

            He rolls over. Gets his hand around the loaner wand and rasps, " _Accio_ Firewhiskey."

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

            Her mother's funeral is at midday. Portia takes her to the small wizard chapel, leads her between the pews to the dais just below the altar and the cloth-covered body lying atop it. The Auror is standing just behind it in dark clothes, his eyes flinty green in the noon light filtering through the chapel's stained glass windows; he watches Emma as she approaches with Portia, and she stares fixedly at her mother's body. Traces where her face must be underneath the dark blue cloth, her knees, the spaces where her hands and feet should be but aren't.

            "Do you want to look?" Portia says gently.

            Emma shakes her head. Shakes it again when the priest offers her his wand with the flames dancing at the tip.

            His voice is as gentle as Portia's. "Are you sure?"

            Emma nods. She doesn't trust herself to speak, the smell of oil thick in her nose and mouth.

            The priest touches her wrist lightly. Then he touches his wand to the cloth.

            For a moment, nothing happens, and terror leaps into Emma swift as fire through kerosene. Will Mom's body not burn? Will they discover what she was?

            Then the flames race up onto the fabric and roar above Emma's head in bright orange streaks. They blacken the oil-soaked fabric like a blight, burst with sparks an even brighter orange every time they hit a pocket of the salt that's poured on all corpses, now, since it was discovered during the War it kept bodies from being used as Inferi. Emma stares into the sparks, blinking rapidly against the heat wavering from the body, because she won't cry. She _won't_.

            She does.

            "Sshh." Portia's thin arms come around her. "Sshhh, baby. It's okay. It's okay."

            Emma cries harder. The sobs squeeze her insides like hands, scrabble up her ribs and claw at her lungs. There's something inside her, something that wants to get out, and she wants it to shred her to ribbons on its way out. Wants not to know what her mother's burning body tastes like, or the smell of her severed bones.

            "Emma," Portia murmurs.

            Emma shakes her head and pulls away.

 

\- o -

 

            She spends the rest of the burning outside, sitting on the front step of the chapel. Stares at the quiet pond with its cattails and barely rippling water until the chapel door creaks open behind her.

            The Auror's leather boots are silent on the stone steps, silent as they pad down onto the hard-packed dirt in front of Emma. He doesn't say anything, just stands there, and Emma stays just as silent, looking at his fraying laces.

            Portia's footsteps aren't as quiet. They stop next to Emma, are accompanied by a light weight against the back of Emma's head.

            "All right?" Portia says kindly.

            Emma nods jerkily. Pulls herself to her feet and lets Portia enfold her in a hug. Her arms are thin, but strong as Acromantula silk, trapping Emma close. When she finally lets go, she pulls back only far enough to put her hand to the pouch around Emma's neck where she put the card with her contact information on it.

            "Remember," Portia says.

            Emma nods again.

            Portia steps back. Emma's eyes slide back to the pond. She hears Portia say, "Mr. Winchester, I leave Emma in your care for the time being. If I don't hear regularly from her, _you_ will be the one I swoop down on, am I clear?"

            "Very clear, Ms. Frampton." The Auror's voice is cool.

            "Good." There's a single click of Portia's heels, then the cool breath of displaced air as she Apparates away.

            They stand there in silence for a moment, Emma and the man who fathered her.

            Then Winchester sighs. "Well. Should we get this over with?"

 

\- o -

 

            Emma's only been to Diagon Alley once before. A few years ago, when she was old enough for a wand, Mom brought her here; Emma has the blurry memory of moving bricks and the smell of rubbish. Much clearer is the memory of the wand shop, the sharp eyes of the storekeeper and the even sharper scent of Mom's nervousness. Emma was only starting to learn, then, why they didn't live among other witches and wizards; why Mom kept such a tight hold on her hand whenever they were out on the street.

            She doesn't feel like she belongs here any more now than she did then, hurrying after Winchester in a Muggle hoodie and jeans as witches and wizards bustle around them in billowing robes. She'd give anything to have a cloak with a hood to pull over her face like Winchester's done, to avoid the curious glances following them down the street.

            "Here we are." Winchester stops abruptly. "You good with Moore's?" He doesn't wait for an answer, pushing open the shop door and looking expectantly at Emma. She tears her eyes from the expensive-looking robes floating in the shop window and ducks under his arm into a room smelling strongly of lavender and pipe smoke.

            A middle-aged woman's standing behind the counter, frowning critically at a red dress floating in the air in front of her. She's got at least a dozen pins pursed between her lips, painted with lipstick as red as the dress, and they click against each other when she turns to look at them.

            "Ezra," Winchester says. "We're here for school robes."

            The woman raises a plucked eyebrow. "Left it a little late, didn't we?" she says around the pins in her mouth.

            "Fashionably," Winchester says with an expression that's more grimace than smirk.

            The woman makes a _heh_ sound. Then she looks at Emma. "So you're the kid."

            Emma stiffens.

            "Ezra," Winchester says warningly.

            "What? I'm not going to bite." Ezra takes the pins from her mouth, eyes Emma critically. With a wave of her hand, there's a swathe of black fabric settling over Emma, pushing over her head and fluttering around her ankles. Emma starts, hand twitching immediately for her wand, but the fabric flies suddenly tight around her, constricting her arms and legs, before it loosens again, shaping into sleeves and a hem. "There we go, perfect fit. Wouldn't you say, Dean?"

            "Sure. Great."

            Ezra rolls her eyes.

            "Can you," Emma says. It's the first time she's spoken since they came into the shop, and both Ezra and Winchester's eye's snap toward her. She takes a deep breath and motions at the robes. "Make them a little looser."

            "They fit fine the way they are." Ezra's voice is edged: _I don't need a kid telling me how to do my job_ , it says.

            "Ezra," Winchester says again, that Auror-warning in his tone. Ezra makes a _puh!_ sound and twitches her wand again. The robes expand around Emma, becoming so loose they would probably fit Winchester. "That better, honey?" she says sarcastically.

            "Yes, thank you." Emma returns her gaze to the wall, refusing to bite her lip. She waits as Ezra spins up four more robes in the same size and folds them neatly into a bag, then takes them without looking at the seamstress as Winchester pays.

            When Ezra's door clangs shut behind them, he glances over at Emma. He takes a breath like he's about to say something.

            Emma shakes her head. He exhales and doesn't say anything.

            They do the rest of Emma's school shopping in silence, heading first to the apothecary and then the cauldron shop. The clerk in Flourish and Blott's studies them curiously as he leads them to the counter to ring up Emma's purchases, and at first Emma thinks it's because he's wondering what student waits until the night before school starts to buy her books, then because Winchester still has his hood up. Then, as Winchester leads her toward the door after paying, she sees the newspaper propped on display next to the shop's counter. The front page is dominated by a picture of Winchester glancing over his shoulder, looking much younger than he is now. The headline beside it reads, **Famed Auror Discovers Long-Lost Child**!

             Emma feels like someone's cast a Jelly-Legs Jinx on her insides. She looks up at Winchester as he holds the door open for her, barely able to make out his eyes under the hood. There's no way he didn't see the article. And for the first time, she thinks of how his family must have reacted, his wife and children. How did he tell them? Do they hate Emma? Surely they do. Emma wouldn't have spent the past two days in a social witch's care if Winchester's wife had been willing to welcome her into their home.

            Not that Emma would have wanted to stay with them, but...

            "Are you coming?"

            Emma looks up. Winchester's already halfway down the street, boot tapping impatiently.

            She hurries after him, robes billowing behind her.

            Their stiff weight doesn't feel as comforting as she'd hoped.

 

\- o -

 

            They take the Floo from The Leaky Cauldron to The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. It's Emma's first time travelling by Floo--she and her mother always used Muggle travel, except for the rare, special instances when they flew broomsticks--so she has a feeling she's covered in soot, but Winchester doesn't give her a chance to do much more than shake out her robes once or twice before he's striding out onto the street and up toward the castle silhouetted against the falling dusk. He's got her brand-new trunk full of things from Diagon Alley floating beside them as they go, the Levitation Charm jerky and halting as he flicks his wand, slapping the length of wood against his other hand every other step. Showers of sparks keep hissing from it; he's annoyed, most likely at having to escort Emma up to the castle, and she wishes not for the first time that day that she could have stayed in Portia's care all the way up to coming to the castle, not been handed off to Winchester like a vegetable he didn't want to eat but had been told he had to.

             They come up to a black wrought-iron gate twice as tall as Emma, statues of winged boars on either side of it. Emma squints at them, pretending not to look as Winchester traces several runes over the ornate _H_ in the middle of the gate, then follows him inside as the gates swings silently open.

            The castle seems even more massive once they're inside, filling almost the entire sky, and all of the horizon. Emma stares at the dark stone and glimmering towers, barely hears Winchester saying, "I'm not home often--work and all. But Benny knows how to reach me--or Professor LaFitte, I guess he'll be to you. You listening?"

            Emma snaps back to him. "Yes."

            He frowns at her. "Anyway, if you need anything, you can tell him and he'll track me down."

            _As if,_ Emma thinks, turning back toward the castle. A sudden piercing wail has her head whipping back around again. Winchester snorts and points: There's a bright red locomotive steaming out of Hogsmeade in the valley below them, gray smoke curling up into the darkening sky.

            "The Express. That means the Sorting'll be starting soon, c'mon." Winchester falls into a brisk stride again, black robes flaring behind him. He points left as they walk, toward a cabin nestled in one of the lower hills, above the huge lake shimmering with the reflection of the night sky. "Benny's place is right there, that's where you'll have Care of Magical Creatures. Herbology's just up the hill where you see the greenhouses. And there's the Quidditch pitch--looks like they've already got the posts up."

            Emma glances over at the tinge of wistfulness in his voice. It's the closest to human emotion she's seen Winchester come since he first sat down across from her in that wretched Ministry cell, and it's only now that she's heard it that she realizes she prefers the colder, Auror version of him. She doesn't want to think about him as a boy her own age, studying Herbology and playing Quidditch. Doesn't want to think about him as the famous hero, either, the one who won the war but lost his brother--doesn't want to connect the brave boy in all the storybooks to the stony-faced man who doesn't want to be her father.

            They don't speak again until they reach the sprawling front steps of the castle. There's at least a hundred of them, leading up to a massive set of wooden double doors, and they're perhaps halfway up when said doors begin to screech open.

            A gangly brown-haired man peers out from behind them, panting. His eyes widen when he spots them. "Holy--oh my gosh!" he shouts. "Wow! Wow!"

            He abandons his attempts to push open the doors and bounds down the steps instead, taking them three at a time. "Mr. Winchester!" He grabs the Auror's hand, nearly ends up pulling Winchester down a few steps as he stumbles backward from his momentum. "Such an honor to meet you, sir!"

            Winchester looks down at where the man has two hands around his left one, pumping it eagerly up and down. "Thank you...?"

            "Garth, sir! Garthwilliam Fitzgerald the Fourth, but you can call me Garth! Wow! I am, like, hyperventilating right now!" He laughs, high and loud, and Winchester's smile gets a little more brittle as Garth stops shaking his hand and just holds onto it, instead. "I can't believe I actually get to meet you!"

            "Well, believe it, Garth." Winchester carefully detaches his hand. "Problem is, I'm actually in kind of a hurry, so if you'd take care of Emma here--"

            "Yeah! Yeah, of course!" Garth's eyes jump to Emma. "Sorry, hi! The headmaster sent me to bring both of you up, everyone's waiting for you in his office."

            Winchester's frowning, eyes flicking upward, like he's looking for someone in the windows of one of the towers. "I have to go," he says abruptly. "Auror business. Can you tell Singer sorry I had to leave?"

            Like before, he doesn't wait for an answer. Just backs down the steps quickly, eyes flicking to Emma. She looks back at him for a moment, feeling stunned. Then she remembers herself and looks away, back at Garth with his stricken blue eyes.

            There's a whoosh, then a flutter of fabric. Emma's eyes flick toward Winchester without her permission, but he's gone already; all there is to see is the back of his cloak, whipping in the wind as he hurtles on a broomstick down the path they just walked up to get to the castle. The hem of Emma's bulky robe ripples from the displaced air left behind from the speed of his take-off, then falls still and heavy around her ankles once more.

            Incongruously, she remembers her first day of Muggle school, how Mom had crouched in front of her and planted a kiss in each of Emma's palms, curling her chubby fingers into fists. _"Two kisses to hold onto in case you get lonely today, okay?"_

            It's not like she expected anything like that from Winchester. But suddenly she feels that same ache in her throat, the constricting _please don't leave me._

 

\- o -

 

            She follows Garth into the castle, the heavy wooden doors falling shut behind them. There's a huge doorway leading off the cavernous front hall, and through it Emma glimpses candles and hundreds of kids, in cloaks like her own, laughing, and talking. It makes her blood go hot and sick in her veins. She hurries forward, stumbling in her haste to catch up with Garth.

            "We're all pretty excited!" he's saying. They turn left, down a narrower, darker hallway. "I mean, I don't even know when the last time we had a private Sorting was! Professor Naomi wanted to make you do it in the Great Hall with the first years, but the headmaster said you had enough to deal with already without a bunch of people gawking at you. And anyway, we already know what House you're gonna be in, right?" He gives a little laugh.

            They start up a tightly spiraling staircase set into an alcove in the wall. Garth keeps chattering, something about house elves and fried chicken, and Emma's not really sure where's finding the breath to do all that talking and climb these steps because they're unbearably steep. She's starting to pant under her heavy black robes, and--

            Garth stops abruptly. Emma nearly bumps into him, catches herself on the cold iron banister just in time.

            There's a gryphon-shaped statue in front of them, its beak level with Garth's forehead. Its stone eyelids scrape open and its beak grates apart. "Password?"

            "Balls!" Garth exclaims.

            The statues scrapes slowly out of the way, revealing a narrow doorway. There's light inside it, and voices, and Emma swipes her hands down her sides before following Garth through it. The chamber within is more library than anything else, walls covered in bookshelves and every flat surface covered with more books or scrolls of parchment. At the far end, there's a fireplace crackling, and that's where the voices are coming from, a half dozen people standing before it in robes that glitter in the dancing light.

            Garth hurries toward them. "Here's Dean Winchester's daughter, Headmaster!"

            There's one man among the group who isn't standing but seated. As he turns around, his hands going down to maneuver himself, Emma realizes he's not sitting but wheelchair-bound, using a Muggle-style chair with two large wheels.

            "My face is up here, girl," the man grunts, and only then does Emma realizes she's staring at his motionless legs, in faded jeans. Her eyes fly up to his face as heat rushes to her neck.

            His gruff face softens under the baseball cap he's wearing. He doesn't look much like what she expected from a wizarding school's headmaster at all; his robe is slung on over the jeans and flannel shirt he's wearing like an afterthought. "'s all right," he says in response to her mortified expression. "You're not the first and you won't be the last."

            "Sorry," she mumbles.

            He waves it off and holds out a hand. "Bobby Singer."

            She takes it, too nervous to squeeze it in a proper handshake. His hand is calloused, the skin thick. "Emma," she whispers. Then, a little more firmly: "Emma Prince."

            He grunts. Lets go of her hand but not her eyes, studying her from beneath his eyes. "You've got Dean's daddy's eyes. He tell you that?"        

            At her expression, he grunts again. "Course he didn't. Well, you do."

            He turns, wheeling back toward the group of people at the fire. They've all fallen silent, watching. "You ready to get Sorted?"

            Emma follows him carefully, her shoes sinking deep into the plush rug covering the floor. She has the sudden, unignorable thought that these are the shoes she was wearing when she found Mom, and what if she's tracking blood on the headmaster's carpet?

            Then one of the shimmering-robed women near the fireplace is lifting something off the mantle and walking toward Emma. Her thoughts fall back into place, and she stiffens as the blonde witch comes nearer.

            The witch smiles at her. "Hello, Miss Prince. I'm Professor Visyak."

            Emma nods, looking at the object in the professor's hands. It's a beaten-up old hat, pointy and wide-brimmed with fraying patches sewn into it. She remembers what Portia explained about how she would be Sorted, and wishes now that she'd paid more attention instead of staring at the wall in the Healer's room. She doesn't even know what Houses there are to be Sorted into.

            "How about we get you somewhere to sit?" Professor Visyak looks around, then gives a little sigh and flicks her wand. Emma hears something behind her and looks over her shoulder to see that the stack of books that had been there before has been replaced by a three-legged stool.

            She glances back at Professor Visyak, who smiles and tucks a bit of blonde hair behind her ear. "You may be unsurprised to hear I teach Transfiguration," she says. Then: "Go on, have a seat."

            Emma lowers herself gingerly onto the stool. Professor Visyak eases the hat onto her head. The limp brim flops down over her eyes, and all Emma sees below it is the firelight dancing across the floor before a voice speaks into her ear.

            "Well! Would you look at that!"

            Emma holds her breath.

            "I haven't seen one of your kind at Hogwarts in nearly a century, little one," the voice says. "And a Winchester, at that! Well. This is very interesting. I suppose you're expecting Gryffindor?"

            Emma isn't sure if she's supposed to talk back to the hat. She's on the verge of opening her mouth to ask Professor Visyak, but the voice says kindly, "Ah. I see. My apologies, I made the mistake of assuming, you see, because your father and uncle and their mother's family before them were all members of that esteemed house." It chuckles, the sound like a bee buzzing just inside her ear drum. "You'd think after six centuries I would have taken to hat the old adage about assuming."

            Emma says nothing. The hat grows thoughtful again, making a _hmm_ sound that makes the hairs along the nape of her neck stand up. "Well, I could place you there anyway. But you'd do quite well in Hufflepuff, they have the sort of acceptance there, I think, that you're looking for... That being said, Slytherin would sharpen you. Might make some things easier to bear." It sounds sad, suddenly, and Emma feels a warm weight against the top of her head like a hand placed there. After a moment, it slides away, and the hat speaks again, tone intrigued. "But there is something of Helena about you. Your uncle was the same way, you know, I would have placed him in Ravenclaw if he hadn't asked to be with his brother. I suppose your father would be quite proud to see you in their old House--"

            Emma yanks the hat off.

            Her audience gazes back at her. She stares back, feeling heat flood up her neck, the sides of her face. The hat lies deceptively limp in her clenched hands.

            "...did it decide, my dear?" Visyak asks, forehead creasing.

            "Um," Emma says. Grips it harder. "It couldn't decide."

            There's a snort from behind Visyak. Emma's gaze darts there automatically; a brown-haired woman in a pearl-studded gray robe looks back at her with skeptical blue eyes.

            Emma looks away. "Sorry."

            "No need to be sorry." The headmaster wheels forward, holding his hand out for the hat. After a moment, Emma hands it to him, her heart hammering. Does the headmaster talk to the hat? What if he finds out she lied? She swallows. What if he finds out what she _is_? "Just means you get to decide what House you wanna be in."

            Emma stares at him. He looks back, cocking a brow.

            The silver-robed witch steps forward. "Headmaster, I must protest. Students should be placed by the Hat, not at their own whim."

            The headmaster glances over at her. "I understand where you're comin' from, Naomi. But you all know I've got a beef with the Hat. Half the time I think kids'd turn out a whole lot different if we didn't shove 'em into Smart House, Brave House, and Cuddly House as soon s they got here."

            Emma feels alarmed. The hat hadn't mentioned any of those houses. And none of them sound particularly like places she would fit in... _Cuddly_ House? She might as well find a Portkey to Australia now.

            "At this point in Emma's development, the selection of her House is less about helping to form her personality and more about making sure she has a support system," Professor Visyak says thoughtfully. She takes the Hat from Professor Singer and hands it to Naomi, who makes a disapproving sound but disappears down the stairs with it, robes swishing down the steps. " _Do_ you have a preference, Emma?"

            Emma runs a hand through her hair nervously, feeling where the hat pushed it down, and shakes her head.

            Visyak looks disappointed, her dark eyebrows knitting beneath her light hair.

            Singer doesn't look away from Emma. "What kinda things d'you like to do, kid?"

            Emma curls her fingers inside her stiff new robe sleeves. Unbidden, her mind flashes back to Winchester flying away on that broom, the stab of envy and _want_ that shot through her.

            "Flying," she says. It comes out hoarse the first time, so she clears her throat. "Brooms. I like to fly."

            Singer's mouth twitches under his beard. "You any good at it?"

            Emma bristles before she can think better of it. "Give me a broom and you'll see."

            Singer tugs his hat down, but there's no completely hiding his smile. "Seems to me I heard Ravenclaw's short a Chaser or two."

            Visyak's smiling at Emma now. "You are correct, Headmaster." She twirls her long white wand, and a blue and silver patch affixes itself to the breast of Emma's robe. "Welcome to Ravenclaw, Emma."

            

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read and waited so patiently! Special special thanks to everyone who commented--your comments truly make my weeks!

* * *

 

            Once he's off the castle grounds, Dean pulls out his borrowed wand again. It's been giving him tugs of resistance all morning, jerking a little in his hand with each spell, but it doesn't give much of a fight as he uses it to Apparate, as if it knows he's heading to get it replaced so it can be free of him.

            He appears not at the Ministry but back in Diagon Alley, feeling only a little guilty for lying about Auror business to get out of going up to see the headmaster. Bobby will doubtless find out he lied anyway; Dean'll deal with the aftermath when it comes.

            Colt's Wand Shop is as dusty and run-down-looking as it was all those years ago when Benny brought him and Sam for their first wands. The gold letters in the window proclaiming, QUALITY WANDS SINCE 1863, are nearly worn away by time, the aged brown paper that covers the windowpane from the inside sun-spotted and curling back at the edges, but the shop's door swings open as silently as if Colt oils its hinges every day. Dean enters just as soundlessly, his boots deer-soft on the sawdust-covered floor.

            Colt somehow knows he's there, anyway. He comes out of a row of shelves the moment the door falls soundlessly shut behind Dean. His expression, never exactly hospitable, turns even more sour than usual when he sees Dean.

            "Here to break another of my wands, boy?"

            Dean spears him on an Auror Business stare. It doesn't work on Colt the way it does on most people, probably because he met Dean when he was thirteen and covered in pimples; he just glares back and  hawks into the spittoon on his desk.

            "Don't suppose you care how much work I put into each of 'em," he says. "How eager they are to do you right." He spits again, not breaking eye contact. "You just snap 'em and toss 'em like twigs."

            Dean's tired. He's tired, he's crabby, he's got a fucking sixteen-year-old kid, and he doesn't have time for this. "I get it, I suck, I don't deserve your wands."

            He plops the pouch containing the fragments of his most recent one on Colt's glass counter and turns to face the rows of shelves. They started with beech wood last time, so it seems as good a place as any to begin. But he hasn't gotten more than two steps toward the row when brick walls suddenly appear between each and every one of the shelves, the bricks sliding noisily together like the ones that come apart outside The Leaky Cauldron to let people into Diagon Alley.

            "The hell?"

            Colt's eyeing him from behind his counter. He's got his wand out, gnarled index finger extended along the shaft. "You're not gettin' any more of my wands, Winchester."

            Anger spikes through Dean's exhaustion. "Give me a fucking wand, Colt."

            "I said no."

            "What am I supposed to do, then?" Dean gives a wave of his loaner wand. It sputters and hiccups once in his hand before coughing forth a few sickly yellow sparks. "How am I supposed to go up against a Dark Wizard with this, Colt?"

            Colt spits. "Guess you'll have to figure something out."

            They stare at each other for a long moment, the old man implacable and Dean beyond pissed. Then the door swings open with the sound of a cooing owl and a child saying, "Mommy, Mommy, is it my turn to get a wand yet?" as a mother and two kids loaded down with an owl cage and bags from Flourish & Blotts push inside the small shop.

            The mother's eyes widen as she looks between Dean and Colt, clearly picking up on the tension. She raises her arm to hold her children back, and that look in her eyes, of needing to protect her kids against _Dean_ , drains all the fight from him. He lowers his wand and moves to hold the door so they can come inside, slips outside behind them without looking back at Colt.

            The sound he hears, just before the door slides shut behind him, of "Mom! Was that Dean Winchester?" only makes him feel worse.

 

\- o -

 

            Sam's wand had been birch and angel feather, or so Colt had told them. Benny--or Professor LaFitte, as he'd been then--had snorted when Colt said that, as though he didn't believe it for a second. But Dean had been young enough then, and ignorant enough about the wizarding world, that even if he pretended to be as skeptical as the professor was, he secretly wondered if it was true. Sam, of course, had been huge-eyed and over the moon, staring at his wand like it was the stray mutt Dad had let them keep once, his elation and pride and disbelief all rolled into one glowing expression.

            Dean's first wand wasn't anything special, a thirteen-inch maple with phoenix feather. It broke in his seventh year, when he tried to escape Alastair, before Sam and Jo came for him, and after that, they were on the run, and Dean stole wands from whatever Death Eaters he managed to disarm.

            He managed to hold onto the pieces of his old wand the whole time, though, in the moleskin pouch Sam had given him for Christmas that year so long ago, and when it was all done, when the castle was in ruins and Sam was in the ground, Dean went back to Colt and asked him to fix it. Everything else in his life was shattered, and all he asked was for just one thing not to be in pieces. For one thing to be how it used to be.

            But Colt wouldn't do it. Didn't even try, just looked at the splintered pieces in the old bit of school robe Dean had knotted them so carefully inside and said, "There's no comin' back from that kind of broken, boy. Time to move on."

            Dean left the shop. Walked until he didn't know where he was anymore, walked and slid down the brick wall of an alley and sat there, knees drawn to his chest and hands clutching his hair as people's fireworks went off in joy around him, over him, drifted in bright glimmers of red and gold; and when he came back to Colt's shop a month later, he didn't ask anything. Just began trying wands straight from the shelves until one spat hissing red sparks, red like blood, like hatred, and he dumped his gold on Colt's counter without waiting for change.

            He's gone through four more wands since then. They all seem to break eventually, splintering in his hand during a _Protego_ or cracking in two as he shouts an _Expelliarmus_. "The wand chooses the wizard," Benny had told them that first time they stood outside Colt's shop, and Dean's not sure if that means all the wands he's picked have something broken inside them just like he does, or if they choose him thinking they can handle him, they can fix him, and end up getting dragged down instead.

            He stares down at the loaner wand in his hand. Any hopes of continuing to use it fizzle when he tries to Apparate and the world stays firmly in place around him. He gives it two more tries, with no success. _Son of a bitch._

            He sticks his wand arm out, sighing.

            _BAM!_ The Knight Bus screeches to a halt in the street in front of him.

            "Well, hello there--" A witch in spectacles and a black uniform with an eye-searing pink scarf leans out of the bus's folding door. Her eyes widen behind her glasses when they land on him. "Bloody hell!"

            "Hey," Dean grumbles, hunching his shoulders as people on the street start to look over. "Can I get a ride?"

            "Of course, Mr. Winchester, of course--please come aboard!" The witch flattens herself against the side of the entryway to make room for him, watching him intently. Her nametag says Abby, and remembering how bad he'd felt about the family in Colt's shop before, Dean mutters, "Thanks, Abby" as he climbs the steps. He has to grab the handhold halfway up when the bus door crashes shut and the bus lurches into motion. "Holy shi--"

            "Sorry about that!" Abby gasps. She touches his shoulder lightly to help him keep his balance, then scurries from behind him up to the little alcove where the bus driver is and shouting, "Slow _down_ , Henry!"

            Dean makes his way to one of the pristinely made beds, dropping down onto the foot of it. The mattress groans under his weight, sending up a faint odor of old shoes and wet dog. He grimaces.

            Abby re-emerges, adjusting her hat. "Where are you headed, sir?"

            "Just Hogsmeade, thanks." He pulls a Galleon out of his pocket, shakes his head at her when she starts to pull out Sickles to make change. "Keep it."

            She stares at him, wide-eyed, then sits on a stool bolted to the floor, giving him a little space. But her gaze stays on him, big and eager, magnified by her glasses, as she toys with her scarf.

            Dean shifts under the attention. She seems to notice, straightening and rolling her eyes at herself. "Sorry, it's just so exciting to have _Dean Winchester_ on the Knight bus!" She leans closer. "Would you--I mean--could you tell me about it?"

            Dean's pretty sure he knows what she's talking about. But he says, "Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean."

            She leans even closer, hands curling along the underside of the stool to keep her balance as the bus careens into another turn. "About the Dark Lord. How he died."

            Dean clears his throat. "No. Sorry."

            "Oh." She looks crestfallen for a minute. "Then would you sign my shirt?"

            Dean shakes his head uncomfortably again. "No, I..." He's never understood why people make such a celebrity out of him when Sam's the one who did everything. Sam's the one who saved everyone.

            "Oh, c'mon! Please!"

            "Look, can you just stop?" Dean finally snaps.

            Abby withdraws like she's been slapped. He immediately feels bad, but she doesn't give him a chance to apologize, just murmurs, "Yes, sir," and retreats to the front of the bus, where she stands next to the driver, clutching the back of his chair. By the time they reach Hogsmeade, she's disappeared up to the second level of the bus, saying something airily about checking on their sleeping passengers, and Dean gets a cold shoulder from the driver when he gets off the bus, getting no acknowledgement of his painfully polite "Thank you, sir."

            It's dark as the bus pops out of the air behind him. Warm yellow lights glowing from the windows of the other cottages down the road, but not the one he stands in front of, the one whose gate he is unlatching and walking through. Its windows are dark, its shape unfamiliar, and he finds himself wishing for his flat back in London, dingy and cramped but _his_ , not a place he bought because an MCF representative strongly hinted he should be closer to his daughter's school considering their "unique circumstances."

            He's saved from thinking about said circumstances when he catches a glimpse of silver near the cottage's front door. It's Ron's Patronus, a tiny tapir that comes running up to him, elongated snout bobbing as it opens its mouth. _"Dean. Chief wants us at the Ministry as soon as we can, she said for you to bring your wand."_ There's a pause, then a belated, _"A_ working _one!"_ before the tapir dissipates into the air.

            Dean's teeth dig into his lip. Then he presses his hand against the ward on the front door.

 

\- o -

 

            Sam's wand is in one of the first boxes he moved into the cottage. It's tall and sturdy like Sam was, and made of birch, the wood so soft that the lower end of the shaft is covered in thin scratches and a few tiny dents from the times Sam held it in his teeth while he was writing something, despite how many times Jess complained about how unhygienic it was. Dean imagines that somewhere, too small for him to see, Sam's fingerprints are pressed into the wood, ridges he might press out if he grips the wand too tightly.

            It feels like the worse kind of sacrilege to pull it out of its velvet box. For a minute Dean considers going up to the castle, striding into the Welcoming Feast in the Great Hall to ask Emma for her wand and giving her money to go with Benny to Colt's and get a new one of her own. Because holding Sam's wand feels too much like being alive when his brother's dead.

            But he swallows his gorge and raises it. Flicks it gently the way he might tap ashes from a cigarette.

            A silver shape spills right out like the wand's been waiting for him, coalesces and bounds into his lap: the retriever Sam had wanted so badly when they were kids. It nuzzles his hand. Dean smoothes his palm down its silky phantom ear once, lets it rest there for a moment. Then the Patronus fades into empty air, and Dean pushes to his feet and Apparates to the Ministry.

 

\- o -

 

            The Great Hall is even bigger than the huge hallway Emma entered with Garth. Huge banners hang along the walls, silver and gold and blue, and under each banner in a long wooden table packed with children and teenagers in black robes, clapping or cheering or whistling.

            Over the din, Emma hears a familiar voice shout, "SLYTHERIN!" and the table furthest from the door erupts in cheers. A small boy jumps up from the stool at the front of the room and is led to a seat at the table by a graceful girl with blonde hair so light it's nearly white. Emma stares at her for a moment, then feels the weight of someone's gaze lifting the hairs along the back of her neck. She turns to see the professor the headmaster had called Naomi watching her from the teachers' table, her blue eyes piercing.

            Professor Visyak touches her arm, breaking Emma's gaze from Naomi's. "This way."

            She leads Emma toward the table under the silver and blue banner. As they walk, the hat shouts, "Ravenclaw!" behind them. The table erupts in cheers and clapping. A tall blond boy shoves up from his seat, putting his fingers to his mouth and whistling so shrilly that everyone around him winces, including the tiny freckled boy getting up from the Sorting stool and stumbling toward the Ravenclaw table.

            "Welcome," Professor Visyak tells him warmly as he comes level with them. The boy looks terrified at being addressed by a professor, and even more terrified when he sees that the tall boy who whistled has jumped up from his seat and is coming around the table to grab his hand.

            "Welcome to the best house in Hogwarts, Jesse!" he cries as he shakes his hand. "I'm Adam! What kind of dessert do you like?"

            "Uh--" Jesse's eyes flick from Professor Visyak to Emma and then to the boy again, clearly overwhelmed. "Chocolate cake?"

            "Excellent!" cries the older boy. "Sit here, this is where the chocolate desserts always go." He leads the boy over to where he was sitting, introducing him to the other blue-and-silver-badged students there.

            Then he bounds back over to Professor Visyak. "Professor! Do you have another Ravenclaw for us?" Though he's speaking to the professor, his eyes are twinkling at Emma.

            "Mr. Milligan, this is Emma. She'll be joining our House for the year." Visyak raises a brow. "I trust you'll take good care of her?"

            "The best," Adam promises fervently, and sticks out a hand as Visyak touches Emma's shoulder one last time before turning to head to the professor's table. "Hullo! I'm Adam, but you knew that."

            Emma shakes his hand. Adam pulls her closer with the grip, and Emma stiffens. "I guess you know what question I'm going to ask next!" he shouts into her ear. "Favorite dessert? Don't say chocolate cake, I'll know you're copying."

            Emma shakes her head, looking around. Adam lets go of her hand but motions her after him, squeezing back onto the bench next to Jesse and scooting the opposite way, prompting a groan from a red-haired boy next to him, to make room for Emma. "C'mon!"

            Emma hesitates a moment, then climbs awkwardly onto the bench next to Jesse.

            "You're in sixth year, right?" Adam says. "This is Josephine, she's in sixth as well."

            The dark-skinned girl nods at Emma. "Pleasure. We've heard a lot about you."

            Emma feels some of the color drain from her face.

            "Not that much!" Adam says quickly. "Just a little. People get curious, you know."

            He bumps Emma's shoulder with his own, and speaks lowly, meeting her eyes. "Nobody really knows anything except that you're a new transfer student and the Head Girl and I are supposed to help you find your way around, make sure you make it to all your classes." He grins, says at a normal volume. "The ones you _want_ to make it to, anyway."

            "Which will not include Divination," Josephine says dryly.

            Adam grins more widely. "It'd be pretty convenient if she skipped that one, I reckon it's the hardest to find." He looks at Emma again. "The castle's rather a clusterfuck, isn't it?"

            Next to her, Jesse's eyes go wide and delighted. Emma sees him mouth _Clusterfuck_ to himself as though tucking it away for later, and it's almost enough to make her smile.

            "All right, ya idjits!" Professor Singer's voice rings through the hall, magically amplified. The applause and cheering around the hall falls silent. "Sorting's done--congratulations, Wilcox, Brian--so time to talk business. Heads, get up here!"

            For a moment, Emma thinks he's talking to a set of shrunken heads like the ones she'd seen hanging in the apothecary in Diagon Alley. Then she realizes Adam is climbing out of the bench beside her. He hops as he treads on the hem of his robe and nearly falls over, springing up into a dramatic bow when their House's table bursts into snickers and shouts of "All right there, Milligan?" and "Been hittin' the pumpkin juice already?"

            Emma looks at Josephine. Josephine says, "Head Boy and Girl. Fifth years and up can be prefects, and then the professors choose a Head Boy and Girl from seventh year to supervise them." She snorts. "Don't ask me how a spaz like Milligan got chosen, because I don't know."

            Emma's eyes slide back to the front of the room. Adam's standing there attentively, his face serious now as the headmaster says something about bathrooms in the dungeons and staying out of the Forbidden Forest. Beside him is the light-haired girl Emma saw leading the first year to the Slytherin table before. Her black robes are perfectly pressed and tailored, graceful and form-fitting where Emma's are shapeless, a silver and green patch on the breast of her robe opposite the golden one emblazoned with a large _H_.

            She leans in to murmur something to Adam as they stand there, and his face splits in a grin. They look so comfortable, so human, that Emma can't help feeling terribly out of place. She looks down at her plate, ears burning.

            A hand creeps into her field of vision. She looks up, brows coming together, and meets Jesse's hazel eyes. He puts a finger to his mouth as she looks at him, then reaches over her to touch his wand to the silverware on either side of Adam's plate. Each piece shrinks, becoming the size of something one might use in a tea party for dolls.

            A laugh escapes Emma. Somehow, she does it in the exact moment that Professor Singer's pauses in whatever he was saying, such that everyone hears the sound, and all the heads in the Hall turn to look toward her, including Adam's and the Head Girl's.

            Emma turns Pepper-Up Potion red.

            Then Jesse snorts, and then the whole table's laughing, and Professor Singer's saying dryly, "All right, I can tell you're all too hungry to pay any more attention to me. Dig in tonight, 'cause tomorrow we're back to war rations!"

            He takes his wand away from his throat, waving it instead. Food materializes in all the dishes on the table. Berry-studded rolls and legs of chicken and squash and potatoes and casseroles. Adam comes bounding back to the table and fairly dives onto a dish of shepherd's pie, shoveling it onto his plate with the serving spoon and then reaching for his utensils. When he sees them, he goes up on his knees on the bench, hands going to his hips.

            "All right, which one of you wankers sabotaged my utensils?" he shouts as laughter echoes down the table.

            Jesse elbows Emma, shooting her a sneaky grin.

            She finds herself smiling back.

 

\- o -

 

            The moment Dean turns the corner into the Department of Magical Defense, a paper message swoops out of Ellen's office and whaps into his forehead. It unfolds, plastering itself across his face. Dean growls, but just as quickly, Ron's plucking it from his face and flattening it out.

            "Coordinates," he says as he snatches his cloak from his cubicle and pushes the paper back at Dean.

            Dean follows him, just as relieved not to have to go see Ellen with his new (old) wand burning in his pocket. The Aurors have their own Apparition dock within the department, seeing as how the Ministry is blanketed with the same anti-Apparition spells as the Hogwarts Grounds, and it's empty when they get there save for Henricksen, who's frowning at a piece of paperwork and trying to put out a spot on the hem of his cloak that's on fire.

            " _Aguamenti_ ," Ron says, pointing his wand, but the bit of flame just ripples like it's taunting them.

            "Damn thing won't go out," Henricksen says. "Tried an Aqua Eructo spell, too."

            Ron frowns. "I'd put a Bubble Head Charm on it, then head over to Experimental. They might need to confiscate your cloak."

            "I _just_ bought this one," Henricksen grumbles, but moves out of the way for them to step onto the Apparition plates.

            A moment later they're stepping onto the gloomy outskirts of a forest, twigs crunching beneath their boots. Cold bites through Dean's tunic immediately. He draws his cloak tighter around him, taking in the site. There's a single cottage snugged up close to the tree line, in rather evident disrepair, one side of the roof sagging in and a shutter hanging disconsolately from one of the windows. Which, Dean notices, have bars set into them, like the kind he saw in the houses of the neighborhoods where he and Sam grew up but never in a place as isolated as this. He turns to look around, noting the expanse of emptiness around them, nothing but gorse and trees, not even a path from here into the forest, or toward a road. Of course, a wizard wouldn't need a path; they can just Apparate or even fly by broomstick wherever they need, but then why the bars?

            There's a navy-cloaked MLEP office stationed outside the house's front door. He nods as Dean and Ron approach, holding up his badge: _Steve Wandell_. Dean and Ron flash theirs as well, but the man barely glances at Dean's, just motions them in. "Body's in the basement. Photographer's getting pictures of it now."

            The interior of the house isn't in much better repair than the outside. The furniture is sparse, and looks like it's been through used by a very thorough cat for scratching: There's long gouges torn through the sofa and armchair in the sitting room, the stuffing hanging out, and the doorjambs have similar marks, long scratches dragged through the wood.

            Dean knows exactly what it looks like. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" he mutters to Ron.

            Ron nods. "Werewolf."

            "Nice guess, boys, but not quite." A woman appears in a doorway off the kitchen, coming up creaking stairs that must lead to the basement.

            Dean feels a grin crease his face. "Jody."

            She nods at him, peeling off a pair of gloves and Banishing them. "Nice to see you, Dean. Wish it could be under better circumstances, as usual." She looks at Ron. "I'm Jody Mills."

            "Ron Reznick," Ron says, taking her hand, but his gaze is already focused past her, down the stairs. "You said it wasn't a werewolf?"

            "I said the perp wasn't a werewolf." Jody turns to go back down the stairs, motioning them after her. "The vic, on the other hand..." She pauses, glancing back at them. "You might want to cast Bubble Heads for this one."

            Ron follows her advice. Dean just shrugs, not wanting to take out his wand and have Ron notice it yet. As they get further down the stairs and the stench slams into him, though, he nearly second-guesses his decision, blinking rapidly as his eyes begin to tear up.

            "Told you," Jody says. She's got the Charm shimmering slightly around her head over her navy collar. "The body's been down here a while."

            It must have been, for the stench to be this bad. Dean squints, holding his sleeve to his face as they get to the last step of the stairs. There's a string of Glow Charms hovering around the basement's ceiling, illuminating one of the grislier scenes he's seen in his Auror career. A body hangs from a set of handcuffs set into the basement wall. It's not quite human but not quite wolf, either, the face elongated by the beginnings of a snout and long, deadly claws extending from the hands and feet. These things are peripherally noted, though, because the body's chest and belly are slit open, entrails hanging from the squirming cavities.

            Ron steps toward it, his boots squelching in the mess that must have been congealing on the floor since the body was slit open. "This wasn't done any time recently." He twitches his wand carefully: A bit of intestine slides out of the way, letting him peer behind it.

            "We think it was actually a month ago," Jody says. "Last full moon."

            Dean steps around Ron, peering at the cuffs in white light from the Glow Charms. They're silver. "You think he had himself chained up for the Change."

            "She," Jody says. "Name's Madison Gareau. Undocumented werewolf. Apparently she went to an apothecary in Bristol every month for wolfsbane to keep herself weak during the full moon. When she didn't show up for her dose this month, the potioneer called it in. We came..." She motions toward the body, "and found this. I figured it might be part of the string of hate crimes you guys've been investigating lately, so I called it in to Ellen."

            Dean gives her a sharp look. "You've heard about those?"

            "I read the _Prophet_ ," Jody says dryly. "And I've been around long enough to know how to read between the lines, if you know what I mean."

            Dean grimaces, crouches to examine the cuffs around the victim's ankles and then her wrists. There's cracks in the stone the cuffs are set in that that suggests a struggle, but there's no way of knowing whether that means she fought back her attacker. They could just be from thrashing around trying to get free during her Turns every month.

            "Dean," Ron says lowly.

            Dean glances up.

            "There's no heart."

            "What?"

            Ron glances nervously back at Jody; she's gone over to say something to the MLEP officer taking photos of the upset shelf of potions in the corner. "The victim's heart is gone. The light's not great in here, but it looks like most of the aorta is too. It's hard to tell with the remains being so old, but I don't think it was done postmortem."

            Dean looks back at the ground. Slides his wand out and silently casts a _Lumos_ to trace it across every inch of the small basement, looking for any sign of a shrunken organ that could have landed on the floor and been missed in MLEP's initial sweep. There's nothing but more blood, gleaming dark against the stone floor under the light from Dean's wand.

            "Jody," he calls. "Nothing was taken out of here yet, right? No evidence?"

            "Nothing," she says. "Ellen gave us real strict instructions to leave everything be except the photos until you got here."

            "Crap," Ron says.

            "Why?" Jody looks back and forth between them. "What is it?"

            "Not sure yet," Dean says. He reaches into his cloak, wrestles out a generic pewter ring. It's one of the Ministry's newer magical items, a Portkey designed specifically to transport corpses to the Department's morgue for autopsies. Irreverently called Mortis Movers, they're used for bodies the Ministry is taking custody of, rather than leaving to local jurisdiction. "We'll let you know if we can, but for now we're going to take custody of the remains. You have the paperwork?"

            Jody still looks skeptical, but she rocks back on her heels and nods toward the staircase. "Yeah, it's upstairs with my sentry."

            "I'll come with you and take care of it." Ron glances back at Dean. "You coming up afterwards or going straight to Chief's?"

            "I'll meet you there."

            Dean steps back as the photographer takes several last photos of the crime scene with the body present, then does a quick Scourgify on his hands to make sure he won't be contaminating the evidence. His palms won't thank him for it later; using Scougify on his bare skin always makes it peel like a bitch, but he hasn't got any gloves handy.

            He touched his first dead body when he wasn't even double digits, so it probably shouldn't feel weird to him anymore, the flesh of a corpse, but it does. Every time the cold comes as a surprise, the stiffness or limpness as a shock of _wrong_ ness, something that makes his insides curl. Madison Gareau's body is no different, as he takes the clawed middle finger to slide the Portkey ring onto it. He resists the urge to Scourgify his hand again as he steps back and waits for the body to disappear.

            After a moment, it vanishes in a swirl of color, and a moment later, Dean follows, concentrating on the gold-plated Apparition dock.

 

\- o -

 

            Seeing Ron's familiar curly hair through the window of Ellen's door, he strides in without knocking. But he stops short when he realizes there's an unfamiliar man standing in front of her desk. The man looks almost offensively official, wearing a dark cloak pressed within an inch of its life, gleaming black shoes to match the sleek dragonskin gloves covering his hands, and a _waistcoat_. Who even wears those anymore?

            Everyone turns around when Dean comes in. "Dean," Ellen says, and there's already something warning in her voice, like she can tell what he's thinking. "Have a seat."

            Dean gives her a _like hell_ eyebrow arch and closes her door behind him, advancing as the guy in the dark cloak follows his progress with piercing blue eyes. They're so electrically blue they look like the fake eye Dean's combat instructor back in Auror training had after he lost his to a werewolf's claws.  "What's going on?"

            "This is Professor Castiel Milton," Ellen says. "He's come to us about the Magical Creatures cases. He's an Unspeakable."

            That pulls Dean's attention. He studies the wizard with new eyes. "Doesn't that mean you can't tell us anything you know?" he challenges.

            A corner of the wizard's mouth turns up, slightly. "I am no longer active in the Department of Mysteries," he says. "I left my post as an Unspeakable two years ago." He inclines his head slightly toward Ellen. "I apologize, Director, for not making that clearer."

            Dean's eyebrows knit closer together. He's never heard of an Unspeakable who left the life. "Are you even allowed to tell us what you know, then?"

            Milton withdraws a scroll of parchment from inside his sleeve, ignoring the way Ellen and Dean both tense when he reaches into it, and hands it to Ellen. "I have documented consent from Director Crowley to discuss this with you," he says. "I thought I might be the best candidate considering I was the Unspeakable who dealt directly with the artifacts relevant to your case."

            Ellen breaks the seal on the parchment and scans it, sliding her glasses on. Then she looks up, eyes severe above the frames. "All right. Tell us what you've got, Master Milton."

            The wizard sits down in one of the leather chairs before Ellen's desk, setting the two small black chests under his arm into his lap. "I have been following the non-human murders with some interest."

            "Not exactly the Department of Mysteries' jurisdiction, is it," Dean mutters.

            Milton is unfazed by him. "All things come under the department's jurisdiction," he says, unbothered. He redirects his attention to Ellen. "I, like yourselves, initially believed the murders to be hate crimes committed by a radical party. The details of this most recent murder, however, reminded me of something I had encountered during my time as an Unspeakable which had been given low priority after the war and placed in storage for later investigation."

            "Wait," Ellen says. "Which murder are you talking about?"

            Milton regards her steadily. "Madison Gareau."

            "Hold on a second." Ellen's voice is dangerous. "How did you hear about that? My Aurors only _just_ responded to it."

            Milton sits serenely in his chair and does not respond.

            "Mr. Milton," Ellen says warningly.

            "The information I am allowed to share with you is limited, Director Harvelle. Our sources are not part of that privileged information." He nods once toward the scroll now lying on the side of Ellen's desk. "As Director Crowley's missive reminds you."

            Ellen's face is a thunderstorm. "Go on," she growls.

            Milton slides out the lower box in his stack. He touches his wand to the lock there, gloves gleaming, and with a subtle shimmer like air warped by heat, there's a click and the lid pops open.

            Inside is a black velvet interior, on it lying what looks like a square of white marble rock. All the sides are smooth but for the top, which is jagged and rough, as though the square of rock is part of a larger piece that was cracked in two.

            "This was found during an investigation of a known Death Eater's home," Milton says. "It was confiscated and placed in evidence, processed by our department after the Aurors had their turn with it. We, like you, found it to be of no immediate concern or relevance and placed it in storage."

            Dean steps closer to the Unspeakable's chair to peer more closely at the stone. "What does it say?" Both sides of the rock are covered with rows of symbols, like cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphics.

            "If it's the language I think it is," Milton says, "it's a list of directions. I was only able to translate part of it."

            "Directions to do _what_?"

            "That I do not know." Milton gestures to the top of the stone, where it has been cracked. "The information lies on the piece we do not have. However--" He traces a small, pointed shape on the very edge of the cracked portion with the tip of his gloved finger, "I believe that this may be part of the symbol for _gate_."

            Dean scowls a little, shifting back as the Unspeakable lifts his head to look up at him. He crosses his arms. "I'm not seeing what this has to do with our murders."

            Milton is unfazed. "Note the sigils at the bottom of this tablet," he says, lifting it carefully so that the corner of the stone if visible to all of them. "This is the sigil denoting _heaven_. And this beside it, I believe, is a number. _Three._ "

            "Still not seeing the relevance," Dean says.

            Ellen shoot him a dirty look. Milton ignores him. He sets the tablet carefully back into its chest and then opens the other chest in his lap. Inside it is a much smaller piece of stone, glossy and dark like obsidian. It's cracked like the other tablet was, and this time Dean recognizes the symbol at its corner, for it's the same one worn on the inner forearms of every loyal Death Eater: Lucifer's symbol. The sigil for Hell.

            "This," Milton says, his gloved thumb hovering over the sigil beside Lucifer's, "is _two_."

            Ellen's has gotten to her feet and come around the desk to look at the tablet. "Is this what I think it is?"

            "The tablet used by Death Eatens to restore Lucifer to a body in Stull Cemetary during the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament," Milton says impassively.

            Dean goes cold. He stares at the bit of rock, feeling sweat break out along his back, the palms of his hands. He knows that stone. Sam had bled on that stone. Bled and nearly died and come back to Dean shaking and white and silent.

            "How the hell did you get this?" Ellen nearly snarls.

            "That is classified information," Milton says. Part of Dean wants to punch him so hard blood sprays from his fucking face and half wants to grab the fucking tablet from him and _Reducto_ it to ash and half wants just to snatch the hunk of rock from Milton and take it to his dumb new Hogsmeade cottage and hold it in his hands and just stare at it, to touch and to see something that Sam was so close to. It's not fair that some fucking pencil pushers in the Ministry have it, it's not their _right_.

            "If the Heaven table is labeled three and the Hell tablet is labeled two--" Ronald's voice punctures the haze of rage in Dean's mind, "then what's the first tablet?"

            Something that might be a smile touches the corner of Milton's mouth. He places the tablet back in its chest, and Dean's eyes follow it, stay on it until the lid closes over it. "That is where I believe these tablets may be relevant to the string of murders."

            Dean forces his eyes away from the closed lid, up to Milton. Milton is watching him back, eyes on him like he's cataloguing Dean's reaction to the tablet, and Dean's fists clench, his jaw does the same.

            Milton's eyes slide to Ellen. "The murders you have discovered thus far have included a shapeshifter, a kitsune, and now, a werewolf. What do all three of these victims share?"

            "They're non-human," Ellen says brusquely. "That's nothing we didn't know already, Master Milton."

            "Purgatory," Dean says. "They all came from Purgatory."

            Milton's eyes flick toward him. There's a gleam of something in them, but Dean looks away from it at Ellen's snort.

            "Purgatory's just an old bard's tale," she says. "It didn't actually exist, Dean."

            Dean tries not to stiffen at her tone. He's lived in the wizarding world how many years now, and he still ends up being the recipient of that dismissive tone more often than he'd like, the one that says he's an ignorant Muggle-born who doesn't know what he's talking about.

            "On the contrary," Milton says, "there is some evidence that Purgatory was an actual location, just as Hell is."

            Ellen snorts again. "Says the guy whose family claims to be descended from angels," she says, not entirely kindly, and the Unspeakable's expression doesn't actually change, but somehow the air around him seems to drop a few degrees.

            He rises to his feet. "I did not come here to discuss my genealogy, Director Harvelle. Rather, I came to offer a warning, and my help, should you wish it. The Hell tablet provided directions to accessing Hell. If there is a tablet for Purgatory, and it has been discovered by someone, there is a chance that the murders you are investigating may be part of an attempt to reach Purgatory. I can think of no innocuous motive for such an attempt, but if you choose to ignore my warning, there is nothing more I can do. I thank you for your time."

            He bows, once, and exits the room, chests tucked under his arm.

            Dean watches him go. "Chief...?"

            Ellen's pinching the bridge of her nose, eyes closed. After a moment, she says, "Ron."

            "Chief?"

            "You have anything on _any_ of that?"

            "The removal of the victims' viscera is more indicative of some sort of ritual than a hate crime," Ronald says thoughtfully. "But... Like you said, Purgatory's not an actual place. Just some Muggle concept that Metatron the Minstrel incorporated into a ballad centuries ago."

            There's a scrap of parchment lying on the floor under the chair in which Milton sat. it could be left there from anyone, most likely by Ellen herself, but Dean stoops to grab it, saying, "Milton must've left this behind, I'll run it to him," and jogging out of Ellen's office.

            The Unspeakable is waiting in front of the lift around the corner, his mouth tight and severe as he watches the lights travel toward their floor. The elegantly wrought gold doors slide open just as Dean arrives, Milton already stepping forward into the lift.

            "Hey!" Dean shouts.

            Milton glances up. Their eyes meet as the doors begin to slide shut. Dean grabs one, shoving his fingers between the crack as the doors judder, then slide apart again.

            "Yes, Auror Winchester?" Milton says mildly.

            "If there was something to your theory," Dean says. "Not that I'm saying there is, it sounds like a stretch and a half to me, but if there was. What are we even supposed to do with that sort of intel?"

            "To start with?" Milton says. The lift doors try to shut again, shoving against Dean's elbow, and he shoves them back with his forearms, stepping onto the crack between the lift and the floor. It brings him chest to chest with Milton, but the wizard doesn't step back. "An Auror presence at Hogwarts. It has the densest magical creature population of anywhere in Europe, and anyone seeking to prey on beings which may have descended from Purgatory will likely end up resorting to the castle's grounds to find them."

            Dean snorts. "Yeah, because we have so many Aurors to spare right now."

            Milton's eyes narrow. "At the very least, then, the Department should reach out to magical creatures' communities to let them know of their danger. The centaurs in the Forbidden Forest, the merpeople--"

            "Yeah, and telling them they're in danger but we can't do anything about it is going to go over _so_ well."  

            Milton's eyes flash. "If you did not intend to listen to any of my suggestions, Mr. Winchester, you should not have asked for them." He taps his wand against the lift's navigation panel, and the doors slide shut again, just as an invisible force pushes Dean gently but firmly back onto the floor outside the lift doors. "If you'll excuse me, I have a feast to attend."

            A feast? Dean's brain puts it together just as the lift begins to sink: the feast and the waistcoat and Ellen calling him _Professor_. "Shit, you teach at Hogwarts?"

            The look Milton casts him could flay the skin off a troll. Then he's gone, the lift descending past Dean's feet, and Dean's left with a sinking feeling because he just met one of his kid's teachers and he has a feeling he didn't make the best impression.

            Shit.

            

 

 


End file.
